The Entrepreneur

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Operating under a mandate to prepare for the worst in order to achieve the best, the author, an African-American woman entrepreneur in the male-dominated metals industry, writes that preparation has been critical to facing the challenges presented by the economic difficulties and post-terrorist environment of this difficult year 2001.

Entrepreneurship means risk, writes the author, a veteran journalist turn dot-com entrepreneur who lived to tell the tale in a best-selling book. In an equally frank article, he speaks about teetering on the brink of financial and marital collapse before securing financing, and advises fledglings to assess their tolerance for risk and level with loved ones before taking the risk-laden entrepreneurial plunge.

Risk is the essential element of entrepreneurial life but it can and must be managed if company founders are to build profitable enterprises, writes the author, who has founded companies and is currently a venture capitalist helping others do the same. To control risk, he advises listening to instinct, managing to a plan, and working the financials so that there is enough money to fund the need.

Heidi Roizen is a managing director for Mobius Venture Capital. She joined the fund in April 1999. Ms. Roizen serves as a director of AuctionDrop, Ecast, InStoreCard, MessageCast, Perpetual Entertainment, Planitax, and
Reactrix. She is also a board member of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Her notable prior board service includes Great Plains Software, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2001. Prior to joining Mobius Venture Capital, Ms.
Roizen was a consultant to numerous technology companies, including Microsoft, Intel and Compaq. From 1996 to 1997, she was vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations for Apple Computer. Before joining Apple Computer, Ms. Roizen
served for 13 years as CEO of T/Maker Company, a successful software developer and publisher. She is a past president of the Software Publishers Association and has served as a public governor of the Pacific Exchange. Ms. Roizen has been
recognized as one of the 100 most influential people in the microcomputer industry by MicroTimes, Personal Computing Magazine and Upside Magazine. Ms. Roizen has a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

A culture of fun and respect for customers and employees pervades this family-owned furniture business that has been sold to legendary investor Warren E. Buffett, writes the author. Culture is what can't be taken away, even after a company is sold, as both the author and his brother are still actively involved, he notes.

Vinod grew up dreaming of being an entrepreneur. He was raised in an Indian Army household with no business or technology connections. When, at age 16, he first heard about Intel, he dreamt of starting his own technology
company. Upon graduating with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he tried to start a soy milk company to service the many people in India who did not have refrigerators. He then came to
the US and got his Masters in Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie-Mellon University. His startup dreams attracted him to Silicon Valley where he got an MBA at Stanford University in 1980. In 1982, Khosla started Sun Microsystems to build
workstations for software developers. At Sun he pioneered "open systems" and RISC processors. Sun was funded by long time friend and board member John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In 1986 he switched sides and joined
Kleiner Perkins where he was a general partner. There, he worked with Nexgen/AMD, Juniper, Excite, and many other ventures. In 2004, Khosla formed Khosla Ventures. Khosla Ventures offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to
entrepreneurs. The firm helps entrepreneurs extend the potential of their ideas in both traditional venture areas like the Internet, computing, mobile, and silicon technology arenas but also supports breakthrough scientific work in clean
technology areas such as bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, battery and other environmentally friendly technologies.

Vinod grew up dreaming of being an entrepreneur. He was raised in an Indian Army household with no business or technology connections. When, at age 16, he first heard about Intel, he dreamt of starting his own technology
company. Upon graduating with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he tried to start a soy milk company to service the many people in India who did not have refrigerators. He then came to
the US and got his Masters in Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie-Mellon University. His startup dreams attracted him to Silicon Valley where he got an MBA at Stanford University in 1980. In 1982, Khosla started Sun Microsystems to build
workstations for software developers. At Sun he pioneered "open systems" and RISC processors. Sun was funded by long time friend and board member John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In 1986 he switched sides and joined
Kleiner Perkins where he was a general partner. There, he worked with Nexgen/AMD, Juniper, Excite, and many other ventures. In 2004, Khosla formed Khosla Ventures. Khosla Ventures offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to
entrepreneurs. The firm helps entrepreneurs extend the potential of their ideas in both traditional venture areas like the Internet, computing, mobile, and silicon technology arenas but also supports breakthrough scientific work in clean
technology areas such as bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, battery and other environmentally friendly technologies.

Effective business planning is critical to an entrepreneurial company's long-term success and its ability to raise capital and grow successfully. A properly prepared Business Plan should tell a story, make an argument and conservatively predict the future. All companies have different stories to tell, different arguments to make and different futures to predict, so they must resist the temptation to copy from others or to follow a rigid outline.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin recruited Eric Schmidt from Novell, where he led that company's strategic planning, management and technology development as chairman and CEO. Since coming to Google, Schmidt
has focused on building the corporate infrastructure needed to maintain Google's rapid growth as a company and on ensuring that quality remains high while product development cycle times are kept to a minimum. Along with Page and Brin,
Schmidt shares responsibility for Google's day-to-day operations. Schmidt's Novell experience culminated a 20-year record of achievement as an Internet strategist, entrepreneur and developer of great technologies. Schmidt's well-seasoned
perspective perfectly complements Google's needs as a young and rapidly growing search engine with a unique corporate culture. Prior to his appointment at Novell, Schmidt was chief technology officer and corporate executive officer at Sun
Microsystems, Inc., where he led the development of Java, Sun's platform-independent programming technology, and defined Sun's Internet software strategy. Before joining Sun in 1983, Schmidt was a member of the research staff at the
Computer Science Lab at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and held positions at Bell Laboratories and Zilog. Schmidt has a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University, and a master's and Ph.D. in
computer science from the University of California-Berkeley.

A network of U.S. cities facilitating a weekly entrepreneur education program. Go to 1 Million Cups >

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